The Life and Crimes of Bernetta Wallflower

by Lisa Graff

  “Really? But I thought you loved being a con artist.”

  He shrugged one shoulder. “It’s not really the same as in the movies, you know?”

  Bernetta nodded and clutched the shoe box tight between her hands. “Well, I guess I should get going.”

  “Okay,” Gabe replied. “You wanna come over tomorrow? Now that we’re retired, you can get caught up on all those films you need to see. I think I’m going to show you The Godfather first.”

  “Actually, Gabe, I”—she stood up, and he did too—“I don’t know if I can. I’m sort of supposed to be grounded for the summer.”

  “Oh,” he said. “Okay. Well, maybe when school starts again? You could come over on weekends or something?” He cleared his throat. “If you want to, I mean. You don’t have to.”

  She laughed. Suddenly she realized that maybe Gabe didn’t always know what to say to her either. “I think I’d like that,” she told him.

  “You know,” Gabe said as they headed to the front door, “if you go to Harding, maybe you can hang out with Tim. You guys could be copresidents of the chess club. Then Ashley could make fun of both of you at once.” He grinned. “It would save her a lot of time.”

  When they reached the door, Bernetta paused, her hand on the doorknob. Was he going to try to hug her again? Should she hug him?

  “Well,” he said, “ ’bye, I guess.”

  “’Bye,” Bernetta replied. She opened the door and stepped outside.

  She walked down the steps and across the grass, and she had just reached her bike when Gabe called out to her.

  “Bernetta?”

  She whirled around. Gabe was standing in his doorway, hands in his pockets.

  “Yeah?”

  “I was just thinking. Maybe I could try to get kicked out of Kingsfield. Do something really awful. Then I could hang out with you and Tim at Harding.”

  Bernetta placed the shoe box delicately inside the front basket of her bike and climbed up on the seat. Then she looked up at Gabe and smiled.

  “Try not to live up to all my expectations,” she told him.

  He smiled right back. “The Sting,” he said with a nod. “I told you it was a good movie. You’ll like The Godfather even better.”

  “See you, Gabe.”

  “See you.”

  She rode off down the street. And with each pump of her pedals, life for the new Bernetta Wallflower began to seem more and more exciting. No more cons, no more secrets, watching The Godfather on the weekends, even Harding Middle School didn’t seem so bad anymore. Maybe she’d even join the chess club like Gabe had said.

  Yes, Bernetta thought as she turned the corner. She’d probably be awfully good at chess.

  22

  CENTER Tear n: a trick in which a magician communicates a message written on a piece of paper that has been previously folded, ripped, and burned

  After Bernetta had deposited her money in the bank, she wandered around town for a while, pedaling in lazy zigzags across the street. She went to the park and bought an ice-cream bar from the truck on the corner and sat on a bench in the playground while she ate, her rainbow toes stretched out far in front of her. All around her kids were playing, skidding down the slide headfirst or turning flips on the parallel bars or whispering to each other under the shade of a tree. A group of girls her age was playing soccer on a wide stretch of grass, and some teenagers were having a makeshift picnic of sodas and potato chips, stretched out on their stomachs reading magazines.

  This was summer, Bernetta realized. And she’d missed it. She’d been too busy trying to get somewhere else.

  Bernetta pulled the change from her ice-cream bar out of her pocket and plucked out one quarter, holding it in her left hand. She raised it to chest level, as though demonstrating the coin to a captive audience. And as the sun stretched its way across the sky and the warm afternoon drifted into breezy early evening, Bernetta practiced the French Drop.

  Colin was bouncing a ball against the garage door when she pulled into the driveway.

  “Hey, Bernie Bernie!” he called to her as she set her feet on the ground to stop herself. “I get to go to Zack’s for a sleepover. He has a guinea pig. Also, Elsa says I can’t own my own planet until I’m eighteen. Is that true?”

  Bernetta parked her bike against the garage and scooped Colin up into a hug, lifting his feet right off the ground.

  “What was that for, Bernie Bernie?”

  She set him back down and shrugged. “Nothing,” she said. “I like you, that’s all. Plus I wanted to say thanks. For being such a good roper with Ashley.”

  “Oh,” Colin said. “You’re welcome. What’s a roper?”

  “The person who brings in the mark,” Bernetta told him.

  “What’s a mark?”

  She laughed. “I’ll tell you when you’re older.”

  “When I own my own planet?”

  “Yes,” she said, tousling his hair. Then she walked inside and upstairs to her room, feeling better than she had in a long time.

  That night, when Bernetta’s mother got back from dropping Colin off at his sleepover, Bernetta sat down for dinner with her parents and Elsa. Once everyone had ample amounts of food on their plates, Bernetta cleared her throat.

  Her dad looked up.

  “I want to show you guys something,” she said.

  She pulled a quarter from her pocket and, just as she’d practiced, held it up in her left hand and brought her right hand over, pretending to make the switch. She followed her right hand with her eyes the whole time, careful not to give anything away, and then opened her right hand to reveal that it was empty.

  Her family began to applaud but stopped when Bernetta opened her left hand: empty as well. She could tell by the look on her dad’s face that he hadn’t been expecting that. No one else had either.

  Slowly, Bernetta reached over her head, and from the depths of her massive braid of frizzy orange-yellow hair, she produced a quarter.

  Her father dropped his napkin on the table and clapped his hands. “Bernie!” he cried. “That was amazing!”

  “It really was,” Elsa agreed.

  “Truly excellent, Bernetta,” her mother declared.

  “Thanks,” she said. Then she took a deep breath. A very deep breath. She set the quarter down on the table and stared at it for a moment. “Um . . .” She slid the quarter back and forth a fraction of an inch with her index finger. “Um . . .”

  “Bernetta?” her mom said. “Is everything okay?”

  She looked up. There was her mother, and her father, and Elsa. Waiting.

  What would happen to the money, she wondered, the nine thousand dollars in stolen cash she’d deposited in the bank that afternoon? Maybe it could be donated to charity, to help kids with cancer or something, or to help train dogs find people buried under avalanches.

  “Bernetta?”

  She didn’t know what they would do when she told them. When she explained all the way back to the begining, about Ashley and the cheating ring. When she talked about Gabe, and the stealing, and all about the fake babysitting job and how she’d tricked Colin into helping her, and the long con they’d pulled, with Ashley as the perfect mark. There’d be yelling, that was for sure. Shouting too and crying—lots of crying. Lectures. Even more grounding. She’d probably have to see some kind of therapist or something, and they’d watch her like hawks, and maybe they wouldn’t ever trust her again.

  “Netta? What’s going on?”

  But when she told them, they’d know. No more secrets. No more lying. No more Bonnie, or Al Capone. Just Bernetta. Bernetta Wallflower. She had lots of choices, and she was determined to make the right one.

  “Bernie?” her father said. “You all right?”

  Bernetta nodded, and in one swift rush she let out the breath she’d been holding. “Yeah,”
she said. “I’m all right. But there’s something I need to tell you guys.”

  It was time to lay her cards on the table.

  Acknowledgments

  Special thanks to Jill Santopolo and Laura Geringer, the two wisest editors a writer could hope to have; to Stephen Barbara, my tireless agent; to everyone at the New School MFA program, in particular Sarah Weeks; to Karen, who sat through the first con-artist movie marathon; to Ryan, my go-to film guru; and to my fellow “Longstockings,” Caroline, Coe, Daphne, Jenny, Kathryne, Lisa, and Siobhan, who keep me happy, healthy, and surrounded by words.

  Read on to sample another magical story from Lisa Graff

  1

  Cady

  Miss Mallory’s Home for Lost Girls in Poughkeepsie, New York, was technically an orphanage, but there were hardly ever any orphans there. In fact, most days, if you peeked inside the window, you would see only one orphan, all by herself but hardly lonely, standing on her tiptoes at the kitchen counter, baking a cake.

  Cadence, that was her name.

  She was standing there now, Cady, deciding what to add to her bowl of batter. If you squinted through the window, you could just make her out from the chin up (Cady was barely a wisp of a thing). You’d see the shiny, crow-black hair that hung smooth as paper from the top of her head to the bottoms of her earlobes. And you’d see the petite—pixieish, Miss Mallory called them—features of her face. Tiny nose, tiny mouth, tiny ears. Cady’s eyes, however, those were large in comparison to the rest of her. Large and dark and round, and set just so on a face the color of a leaf that has clung too long to its tree.

  Flour, sugar, butter, eggs. Cady studied the bowl in front of her. She closed her eyes, digging into the furthest reaches of her brain to figure out what would be the perfect addition to her cake. At last her thick black lashes fluttered open. She had it.

  Cinnamon. She would make a cinnamon cake.

  No one knew exactly when Cady’s Talent for baking had first emerged—just as no one knew exactly where she had come from. But one thing was certain: Cady was a Talented baker. She could bake anything, really. Pies. Muffins. Bread. Casseroles. Even the perfect pizza if she put her mind to it. But what Cady loved above all else was baking cakes. All she needed to do was to close her eyes, and she could imagine the absolutely perfect cake for any person, anywhere. A pinch more salt, a touch less cream. It was one hundred percent certain that the person she was baking for would never have tasted anything quite so heavenly in all his life. In fact, what the orphanage lacked in orphans it made up for in cake-baking trophies. Five first-place trophies from the Sunshine Bakers of America Annual Cake Bakeoff lined the front hall, one for every year that Cady had entered from the age of five, when her oven mitts swallowed her up to the elbows. No matter who entered the competition—professional bakers, famous chefs with exclusive restaurants—none of their Talents were able to match Cady’s, not for five years running. Cady’s cakes were never the most beautiful, or the most stunning. Last year not one but two bakers had crafted fifty-layer-high masterpieces of sugary wonder, studded with frosted stars and flowers and figurines. One even included a working chocolate fountain. Cady’s single-layer pistachio sheet cake had looked pitiful in comparison. But nonetheless, it had been the judge’s favorite, because Cady had baked it specifically for him.

  This year’s bakeoff would be held in just one short week in New York City, a two-hour drive away. Miss Mallory had already cleared space in the hallway for a sixth trophy.

  The kitchen door squeaked open and in waltzed Miss Mallory, a polka-dot tablecloth folded in her arms. (Miss Mallory’s perfect cake, as far as Cady was concerned, was just as scrumptious as she was—a nutty peach cake with cream cheese frosting.)

  “What did you come up with?” Miss Mallory asked, crossing the room to peer into the cake bowl.

  Cady found the cinnamon in the cabinet above her and popped off the lid. “Cinnamon,” she replied, shaking the spice into the bowl. Cady had no need for measurements. “A cinnamon cake, three layers high.”

  Miss Mallory took a deep breath of pleasure. “And the frosting?”

  Cady did not even need a moment to think. She knew the answer, sensed it the way other people could sense which way to walk home after a stroll in the woods. “Chocolate buttercream with a hint of spice,” she replied.

  “Perfect,” Miss Mallory said. “Amy will love it.” She snuck a finger out from under her tablecloth to poke a tiny glob from the bowl. “I hope this fog finally gives up,” she said, sighing as the taste of the batter hit her tongue.

  Cady had been so intent on her baking that she hadn’t even noticed the haze. She peered out the window. Out on the lawn, the thick mist obscured all but the legs of the picnic table, and puddles speckled the steps to the porch.

  It had been foggy the morning Cady was brought to Miss Mallory’s, too. Cady had been much too young to remember it, but she’d heard the story so many times that the details were as real and comfortable as a pair of well-worn shoes. The damp smell of the dew outside. The mystery novel Miss Mallory had been reading when she heard the knock at the door. And most especially, Miss Mallory’s surprise at the arrival.

  “I’d never seen a baby so small,” Miss Mallory always told her. “And with such a remarkable head of hair. There was a braid woven into it.” Here Miss Mallory would trace the plaits across Cady’s scalp, making Cady’s skin tingle delightfully. “It was the most intricate braid I’ve ever seen, twisted in and about and around itself like a crown. Whoever gave you that braid was Talented indeed.”

  Miss Mallory snuck one more fingerful of batter from the bowl. “Perhaps we should move the party inside today,” she suggested.

  “But Adoption Day parties are always outside,” Cady protested, slapping Miss Mallory’s hand away playfully. There wasn’t much consistency in the life of an orphan—new housemates coming and going like waves on a shore—but Adoption Day parties were always the same. Adoption Day parties took place outside, with presents and card games (it was difficult to play other sorts of games with so few people about) and a cake baked by Cady for the lucky little girl whose Adoption Day it was.

  People sometimes suspected, when they learned how few orphans lived at Miss Mallory’s Home for Lost Girls, that it must be a sorry excuse for an orphanage. But the truth was quite the opposite. The truth was that most of the orphans at Miss Mallory’s found their perfect families astonishingly quickly. Miss Mallory had a Talent for matching orphans to families—she felt a tug, deep in her chest, she said, when she sensed that two people truly belonged together, and she just knew. Most of the little girls who came through the orphanage doors were matched within days of arriving, sometimes hours. Miss Mallory had famously matched one girl only seven minutes after she stepped off her train. They would send photos, those lucky little girls who had found their perfect families, and Miss Mallory would frame them and hang them in the front hallway, just above Cady’s row of trophies. Smiling kids, beaming parents.

  Cady had studied them carefully.

  Cady was the only orphan at Miss Mallory’s who had ever stayed for an extended period of time. Oh, Miss Mallory had tried to match her. Over the years Cady had been sent to live with no fewer than six families—loving, happy, wonderful families—but unlike with the other orphans, it had never quite worked out. Cady had always done her best to be the perfect daughter. She yes, ma’amed and no, sired and ate all her vegetables and went to bed on time. But no fewer than six times, Miss Mallory had come to return Cady to the orphanage long before her one-week trial period was over. “I made a mistake,” Miss Mallory always told her. “That wasn’t your perfect family.”

  But Cady knew that Miss Mallory didn’t make mistakes. Somehow, for some reason that Cady couldn’t explain, the fault lay with her. And Cady vowed that if she ever got another chance, with another family, she would do whatever it took to make it work. One day she would have
an Adoption Day party of her own. One day she would bake the perfect cake for herself.

  “Maybe,” Cady said slowly, glancing outside at the beautifully foggy morning, “maybe today’s the day I’ll meet my family.” The very idea warmed her through just as much as the heat from the oven. She tugged an oven mitt onto each hand and opened the oven door, then set the cake pans on the center rack. “Maybe,” she said again, “my real and true family will step right out of the fog.”

  Turn the page to read the first chapter of Lisa Graff's novel

  LOST IN THE SUN

  ONE

  IT’S FUNNY HOW THE SIMPLEST THING, LIKE riding your bike to the park the way you’ve done nearly every summer afternoon since you ditched your training wheels, can suddenly become so complicated. If you let it. If you start to think too hard about things. Usually, when you want to go to the park, you hop on your bike, shout at your mom through the window that you’ll be home in an hour, and you’re there. You don’t think about the pedaling, or the balancing, or the maneuvering of it. You don’t consider every turn you need to make, or exactly when your left foot should push down and your right foot should come up. You just . . . ride.

  But suddenly, if you get to thinking about things too hard, well, then nothing seems easy anymore.

  When I’d left the house, with my baseball glove tucked into the back of my shorts, and my ball in the front pocket of my sweatshirt (next to my Book of Thoughts, which I wasn’t going to take, and then I was, and then I wasn’t, and then I did), the only thought in my head was that it was a nice day. A good day for a pickup game in the park. That there were sure to be a few guys playing ball already, and that I should get going quick if I wanted to join them.

  And then I got to pedaling a little more and I thought, Do I want to join them?